


I Come Back to Haunt You

by gabiroba



Series: Drabbling in a Playlist Challenge [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:50:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabiroba/pseuds/gabiroba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are times when we make choices for ourselves that affect all those around us, and those choices come back to us over and over again to stare us in the face. Based on the song "Haunt" by: Bastille.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Come Back to Haunt You

We'll make our agreements,  
About when to meet,  
And I'll leave you in the doorway,  
The cold evening aches,  
As it leaves in its wake,  
All the memories left by the day,  
And I'm questioning why,  
As you look to the sky,  
That it's cloudless up above our heads,  
And thoughts come to mind,  
that our short little lives,  
Haven't left the path that they will tread,  
They will tread

Melinda May looked at Phil Coulson as he drove through the winding roads of the California coastline. They were running with nowhere to go. It had been a foolish idea, thinking that just because they had managed to escape for the week they would be able to escape for life. They wouldn’t last; she wouldn’t last.  
When they came to the hotel all she had to do was look at him and he knew the thoughts that were going through her mind. It was as if he could see into her very soul. He was the only one.  
Night had fallen by the time she made her way out of the room. Their goodbye had been bittersweet and over-extended, but there had been finality to it. There wouldn’t be a tomorrow for this thing they had been playing with for so long. There wouldn’t be any do-overs or making up. What once was had been and was gone.  
Their paths would cross again countless times, of that they were both sure. But the late night cuddles in front of the fire were finished. There would be no more secret hospital visits when one of them got injured in the field. Both would be going home to their own beds each night and wouldn’t be hiding anything, related to each other, from the organization any longer.  
She drove into a rest stop and looked up. For all the dark emotions going through her at the moment, the night was just too beautiful. How could it be? This was how it was supposed to be.

I come back to haunt you,  
Memories will taunt you,  
And I will try to love you,  
It's not like I'm above you, 

Never having been very in tune with her feminine side, Melinda failed to notice her missed periods for two months. By the time she got around to seeing a doctor it was already too late. She was pregnant, and there was no getting away from it.  
Perhaps, she thought, somewhere in the back of her mind she wanted this, figured it was her just deserts for letting her heart get away from her for a moment. While she grew to appreciate the life inside her for what it was, a being created out of the love between two people who never should have been, she also knew she wasn’t meant to be that child’s mother.  
In the hospital, seconds after she gave birth and the doctor placed that bundle in her arms, she doubted her decision. But as soon as it came, the thought vanished from her mind. The child would be raised by ones who were better able to rear her, who be there for her little girl and raise her well. This was not a job for Melinda May. Melinda’s job was fighting bad guys and being constantly on the move.  
Her one regret, which came as a blow to the stomach every time it crossed her mind, was how much Phil would have liked to have been a father. He would have relished in it, and she had taken that right from him by hiding it all. The face of her lover on her daughter’s stare would haunt her until the day she died. 

The wisdom we learn as our minds,  
They do burn'll,  
Entice the naivety in youth,  
As adults will grow and maturity shows,  
The terrifying rarity of truth,  
As you turn to your mind,  
And your thoughts they rewind,  
To old happenings and things that are done,  
You can't find what's passed,  
Make that happiness last,  
Seeing from those eyes what you become,  
Well you become  
I come back to haunt you,  
Memories will taunt you,  
And I will try to love you,  
It's not like I'm above you,

A few years later, all traces of birth gone, Phil Coulson and Melinda May, part of a larger group, are sent on a mission. Things go bad, all but them die. The Cavalry is born.  
Slowly, he tried to break her out of her shell. He still knows her better than anyone else. He still sees more than anyone else. They aren’t young anymore. They aren’t naïve enough to believe that physical release is what will get them through a tough time.  
They reconnect, at least for a short time. They keep each other going until the brunt of it is passed and they can restart their lives. Neither will be the same. Looking into each other’s eyes on their last night together they realize that they are still in love. But they also realize, more than that night so many years ago in the little hotel in California, that they are better off apart.  
They sear each other into their memories one last time. They know it can’t be possible. They can’t go back to that which they had and gave up so many moons ago. They refuse to be the same people they left in that hotel.  
So they allow those memories to resurface now and again. They can’t have each other, but they can haunt themselves with the smiles and heated looks once shared by their lovers. They can picture the love and contentment in the eyes of their other half, even if it is all a lie and as soon as their eyelids flutter open the spell will be broken once more.  
Their lives progress, and while lonely, they live. They live for each other and themselves. They live for the daughter one has forgotten and the other never knew existed; they live for the love they had, gave up and lost.  
Day by day they live. Day by day they survive. Day by day they haunt each other.

I will see you there,  
See you there,  
See you there,  
I'll come back to haunt,  
Memories will taunt you,  
And I will try to love you,  
It's not like I'm above you


End file.
